Why do I do it?

I can’t speak for others. But for me it’s clear. I want to play live. The excitement, the feeling, the social aspect, the community of sharing, the “moment” it’s all about playing live in front of an audience usually (although just rehearsing can feel pretty epic sometimes).

But getting gigs for original projects isn’t easy.

It’s great when you have someone working on that for you and your music, like a manager or agent. But until you can attract other individuals who can enter into partnership with you, it’s all about the bookings you can generate yourself.

Releasing music is the true key to receiving bookings – promoters and agents need to know what you sound like and now of course they want to see what kind of engagement you have on social media.

It can be daunting and hard to know where to start. You need music recorded for people to listen to, so you can get fans, you need fans to get gigs, you need other musicians to work with you on a wing and prayer until you can generate some interest that will give them confidence working with you isn’t a waste of time – especially if you have zero budget to pay them.

It’s tough to impress upon them the necessity to have faith in the music and in you. And if you’re a bit older it’s harder to find willing and available musicians, as lots of people have families and mortgages or even day jobs (usually teaching) to supplement the low-income pay we usually receive for most of our work.

Per performance – Club pay averages around £150 each (sometimes less), functions £200-300, private events £300+ “Name” artists on tour will offer anything from £250 per gig to around (rare) £800+ averaged over a week of 4-5 shows. The standard pay most of us survive on when we’re not touring is the club and function level. That is not an income level you can survive on, especially if you have a family.

Lots of musicians compensate for this challenge by working on releasing their own music, (recorded at home and by playing/programming everything themselves in early compositional efforts) and sometimes (most often) this results in unfinished albums or low-quality recordings. But the belief is it’s still better to have something out – even one track to point promoters and agents towards.

Why a band and not a solo artist with “session musicians”?

I’ve recorded and released 2 albums in between my session work, touring all over the place, and this time I wanted to make sure I had a band. Why a band? Because of the sound and contribution other people make, the unique identity around those individuals, and because I didn’t want to have to create parts out of other people’s takes to make a record. Developing a sound takes time and many hours of playing together. People need to gain confidence to try ideas out and learn how to shape a performance that represents and suits the music also.

I’ve spent many years in studios watching how others produce records. I’ve experienced how producers will manage a session with me and others, and how they’ll arrange, edit and shape a track. So far, my impression about how many people produce today is “I am the boss and sole arbiter of taste. I know what that bassline should be and even how you should play it”. That model is killing the art of recording a great record with personality and character. We have good songs, we have wonderfully mixed records, and we have some beautifully produced albums, but regarding the performance element? I think that is missing from most records. The musicians are present but not in their glory of personality and unique touch, such as we would find on records of old. Performers are over-managed and overly controlled by producers/writers and arrangers who believe they know better. Today James Jamerson’s style would be “too busy”, Marcus Miller shouldn’t play that “slap crap”, and Norman Watt-Roy should “keep it simple”. (Have bassists suffered the most from being told how to play?)

So I have a band to allow people to musically speak with their own voice but with my sense of harmony and all the other ways I shape the original ideas that massively steer the direction of each song. Being the bassist this is highly significant as given enough freedom, the bass can be an irresistible force of influence in any track.

I didn’t want to make my band’s 1st record the way I did my previous ones. Back then, the drummer would record his drums to a demo pre-arranged and committed to early on, then I would gradually call in each instrumentalist to replace all the demo parts and create a record, editing parts along the way. My skilled engineer and my highly fussy musical ear meant that you couldn’t easily hear the edits, but this time I was determined to record live and get a performance-based recording. (Yes we will overdub, but the rhythm section records live to capture the right energy, especially from drums and bass).

I wanted the record we make to mostly represent what we sound like playing live. With not too many tracked guitars and keyboards or stacked backing vocals, an album that isn’t dependent upon effects or studio tricks that are hard to reproduce live. I wanted a band sound so that when our CDs are ready, and you see us at a gig, what you just watched, you pretty much can buy afterwards.

So, in the summer of 2022, I crowdfunded a record. I know most bands don’t make much ££ from sales of CDs and streams (not an income for six people anyway). Making an album is going back to the idea that recorded music is an ADVERT to showcase music to an audience—because the best experience of all is at live shows.

I wouldn’t want a life that depended upon selling hundreds & thousands (millions) of records and streams so I could go and laze about on a yacht or the beach of some private island.

I want to PLAY – that is the joy and love of it for me. Not to reproduce the same notes over and over either, trying to make my live performance sound like a recorded moment – but to give a proper performance each time that is unique and offers a real experience for everyone.

The doing of actual gigs and performing is the ‘JOB’.

(If you run a band, it is a business—it should be run like any other business.)

Is that a job I want? Yes, it is. It’s what I’m working towards every day.

So performing with my band is my aim and why I have a band – because that’s what I want to do with my day as often as I physically can. Recording our music is all about that. “Listen to this – do you like it? Come n see us do it live”.

Leading your own band may be an endeavour impossible for most musicians as it does take a lot more effort than most other options as a professional musician. But for the dedicated and the curious, I’ll be blogging about my experiences as we progress – stay tuned!